Your cuppa set to become dearer

With hike in milk price, prices of sweets may also go up

With the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) increasing the price of Nandini toned milk by Rs four per litre with effect from January 5, several restaurants and tea stalls across the City have decided to hike the price of tea, coffee and other milk-based beverages and food products in the coming days.

B Chandrashekar Hebbar, President, Bruhat Bengaluru Hotels’ Association on Tuesday told Deccan Herald that prices of milk-based food products, particularly coffee and tea, would be increased in the range of Rs 3 to Rs 4 per cup. It all depends upon the individual restaurant owners to decide the quantum of hike, he added. K S Gururaj, owner of Janata Hotel, said he would increase the price of coffee and tea by Re one.

Even the prices of sweets are also likely to go up. “We use milk and ghee for preparing most of the sweets. With the increase in milk price, our production cost goes up. Thus, we have to increase the prices of sweets,” said the owner of a swee-meat stall in Gandhi Bazaar.

A leading sweet meat stall, which has three outlets in the City, has already increased the price of khova, barfis and pedas by Rs 20 a kilogram.

As milk forms the major ingredient of milkshakes, juice centres are also set to increase the prices of milkshakes by at least Rs two-three a cup, said the proprietor of Sri Ganesha Fruit Juice Centre in Malleswaram. Following the hike, Nandini milk (which comes in white-and-blue sachet) now costs Rs 33 a litre, up from Rs 29.

“Price of Nandini milk was last hiked in September 2013. Since then, the cost of production has risen. Dairy farmers are incurring loss. KMF has been told to pass on additional revenue to farmers. KMF will soon release the new price chart,” Animal Husbandry Minister A Manju had said.